This essay aims to retrace the varied influences of Henri Poincaré’s ideas on the thought of Joachim Metallmann (1889-1942). Metallmann was a Polish Jew who was murdered by the Germans during World War II and has largely been neglected in the West. Metallmann’s philosophy of science inspired by figures like A. N. Whitehead and H. Poincaré was contrary to the positivistic and logicistic trends dominant in Poland in his time, veering towards a metaphysical reflection on nature. The influences of Poincaré’s (...) work can be found throughout Metallmann’s major works. My intention is to show how Metallmann’s idea of emergentism is quite probably based on Poincaré’s theory of nonlinear dynamical systems. Moreover, the structuralist tendencies of Metallmann’s thought can be linked to Poincaré’s ideas. This all proves that Poincaré’s impact on the philosophy of science goes beyond his role as a “father of conventionalism.”. (shrink)

The authors of this collection argue that all philosophy is really philosophy of culture and that through it we can live more meaningful, flourishing, and wisely guided lives.

The ties between music and philosophy are strong and venerable, as they date back to the very beginnings of the latter. According to the ancient tale, Pythagoras, when passing by a smithy one day, noticed that the hammers make sounds of different pitch and, more importantly, that some of the pitch combinations feel pleasant on the ear while the others sound rather harsh. Intrigued by this phenomenon, the ancient sage began to further investigate it with the so called monochord (being (...) just a plank with a string attached to it which could be shortened at any chosen position to alter the pitch). Thus he discovered that the successions of two sounds that sound pleasant (or, to use a more technical term, consonant) could be achieved if the string is being shortened by 1:2, 2:3 or 3:4. Pythagoras could not be more satisfied with this finding, as it proved his claim that the universe is, on its hidden and true level, based upon an intelligible mathematical structure, and, moreover, that a key to understanding this structure is the Holy Tetractys, a figure representing the first four natural numbers in the form of a regular triangle. (shrink)

The essay presents an attempt at characterizing contemporary music’s culture by identifying a dialectical tension between “modern” and “postmodern” currents in it. After initial considerations on the manifold usages of the term “postmodernism,” five composers’ approaches will be analyzed: John Cage, Philip Glass (and other minimalists), Bernhard Lang, Mauricio Kagel and Johannes Kreidler. However different they may be from one another, all these composers are being interpreted as undermining, in various ways, the practice and theoretical background of modernist avant-garde music. (...) -/- . (shrink)